Wild Blood by Kate Thompson

Author:Kate Thompson [Thompson, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-2422-7
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-04-30T17:44:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

TESS DROPPED DOWN FROM the window and caught herself on jackdaw wings to fly clear of the house unnoticed. The bright little bird was fun to be, full of cocky courage; both wild and people-wise, the way the rats were. As she flew, Tess considered the jackdaw as a possible future. It would allow her to stay close to human life and to observe it from the chimneys and ruins which jackdaws chose for their nesting sites.

There were other possibilities among the bird world, as well. Swallows, perhaps, or swifts, both species forever on the wing, making great journeys across the world, following the sun. Their grace and speed, and the perfection of their aeronautic design had always appealed to Tess’s aesthetic sense. She Switched now, choosing the swift for its greater size and speed, and its tendency to fly higher.

Soon she was above the woods, darting and wheeling, peering down through the trees. There was movement down there all right, but there was nothing unusual about any of it. There were bluetits and chaffinches flitting between the branches, and rats scuttling over the mossy floor. Tess needed to get closer. A moment later she was gliding on sparrow-hawk wings to break her fall. If the swift represented nature’s finest long-distance design, the sparrowhawk was her prototype for the low-flying jet plane. Barely clearing the highest branches, she skimmed above the trees, missing nothing that moved beneath them. The birds clucked and rattled and scolded, warning each other of her presence, but her hard hawk-heart despised them. Let them natter away all they liked. She had more important things on her mind.

She was close to the face of the rock when she spotted Uncle Maurice. Rising, tilting her wings at right angles to the ground, she wheeled across the sheer surface and swept in for a better look. What she saw as she overflew him for a second time puzzled her and she decided to gear down and get closer. As a wood-pigeon she dropped down among the branches and made a clattery, feather-ruffling landing, making a mental note to remove that particular bird from her ‘possibles’ list. At least there was no harm done. The other woodland birds were well accustomed to clumsy pigeon landings, and if Uncle Maurice noticed at all, he gave no sign.

Tess cocked her head and looked down with one eye. Her uncle was standing at the foot of the crag, so close that he could have reached out and touched the bare rock where it rose from a jumble of large boulders, fallen from above. Now that she was close, she could hear that he was speaking but, as always when she was in animal form, Tess could not understand the words. She could, however, often get a sense of the mood of the speaker, and it seemed to her now that Uncle Maurice was pleading, or begging, or even praying.

But why at the rock-face? She Switched again, to a robin this time.

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